We did it

Man, it was so traumatising and exhausting. I don’t know how we did it to be honest. All sorts of things went wrong. Not least of which, the mortgage money didn’t come until 4.30 and we thought we’d have to move out with the cat with nowhere to go. Talk about stress. Then Dawn had to drive 120 miles on 3 hours of sleep. 

We were almost hallucinating, we were so exhausted. We’d totally underestimated how big a van we’d need. It all took 2 Lutons rather than one we had estimated. The removal guys were superb luckily. 

Now, we are sitting amongst boxes, don’t know where anything is and are waiting for a carpet which Dawn’ll fit. Changing addresses is such a ball ache because you’ve got to prove it with a utility bill or tax but of course we don’t have any yet. I’ve got 18 to do! And everyone will be suspicious of me. There are so many details of life that are tied to your address. I’ve paid for mail direction but have had no redirected mail yet and suspect it’s not been implemented. Another ball ache. Life has disintegrated or unravelled and it’ll be weeks before it gets back to normal.

Still it's been great to have some crisp dry weather and leaving endless rain behind. We love the house, it’s strange to have an upstairs after years in flats and bungalows, though it's full of boxes of what I can only call crap. There’s loads for Dawn to do, I wish I could help, it was always 
my role to shift stuff around but try doing it when you can't use your left hand or stand up for long. I know it’ll be great when it's all sorted out. 

Then Openreach got our address wrong for broadband installation and they can’t just put it in your house. It's got to be at the address they’ve written down on the order- which they got wrong - so it all has to be delayed and frankly I don’t know when it’ll happen. We’re using an old 4g modem in the meantime which is too slow to consistently open some sites.

I did know this was a hugely ambitious thing to dig ourselves out of that house at our age for a new, unpredictable, more cultured place and it’ll take as long to get properly installed here. Not being able to find anything is hugely frustrating - where the olive oil has gone is a mystery - but it won’t last forever and everything will get sorted eventually. I reckon by the winter it’ll all be in place and organised. No point in being in a mad hurry and we can’t break ourselves rushing to do everything - though Dawn has ordered a studio to be built in a couple of months and has to prepare the ground for that.

But I’m sure you’ll understand that we’ll take this week off to get set up. All the creative stuff takes a back seat to practicalities. So there won’t be any more newsletters or a new quiz this week or new designs for that matter. We just need some time to organise ourselves

It’s a whole new chapter and I'm glad we took the hard road and did it, though bloody hell I never want to do it again.